Let’s start with the basics: what is Mailchimp?
Mailchimp is a web-based email marketing platform which gives you the ability to create and manage mailing lists, newsletters, automated campaigns and more. It puts you in the driver’s seat and lets you have full control over your email marketing efforts from beginning to end. Mailchimp is simple and easy to use and its software gives you access to an array of email marketing tools all conveniently located in one place. There are several advantages that Mailchimp provides over other competitors in the industry which make it a top choice for businesses looking to get their foot in the door with email marketing.
Mailchimp makes it extremely easy to curate your email list. You can add subscribers manually, via a form embedded on your website, by uploading an Excel Sheet, by connecting to a Google Sheet, or a variety of other methods. Once an email is sent you can see a report of how many times your email was opened, how many links were clicked, if emails bounced, or if people unsubscribed. Speaking of bouncing and unsubscribes, Mailchimp handles both of these actions very smartly. If an email address bounces back a certain number of times it will be “cleaned” from your list and, of course, recipients will always have the option to unsubscribe from your list. Both of these features are very good things! To stay within the limits of the free plan (see below) you will need to stay at 2,000 subscribers or less and these features will help you keep only the best of your audience.
Another lovely feature of Mailchimp is automated campaigns. This could be a mailing that is sent automatically to a subscriber once they sign up for your list and could include a special discount code. Automated campaigns help you personalize your brand’s efforts and enhance the interaction between you and your subscribers which is invaluable. After all, your subscribers are potential customers. Beyond welcoming the customer, automated emails can put purchase data to use, let you follow up on website activity that is derived from a particular campaign, keep your subscribers coming back for more and help keep you in full control. Mailchimp integrates with a variety of other application such as WordPress, Facebook, PayPal and more.
Automated emails are perfect for not just welcoming new email subscribers but also providing subscribers a customized mailing whether that be product suggestions related to a purchase, an annual mailing to a subscriber wishing them a happy birthday, thanking regular subscribers who are actively engaged and garnering important feedback about your website, etc. All of these triggers are perfect causes for automated emails which can help bring you closer to your subscribers/customers. Mailchimp provides a range of available workflows for you to get started!
One of the best parts about Mailchimp is that you can use many of the features I’ve previously mentioned for FREE! Like most things, the premium features do have a cost associated with them, but you can host a very robust email marketing list of up to 2,000 subscribers at Mailchimp for no cost.
A Recent Case Study
In our recent redesign of the website for Butte County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue we included Mailchimp integration in several ways.
- One being an integrated newsletter sign-up form in the footer of each page.
- Next, we also created a contact form that, along with sending an email to the team, subscribes the sender to the email list automatically.
- We also automatically subscribe any donors to the email list and tag them as a “donor.”
- Finally, we created an automated campaign that will create a monthly newsletter based on the team’s blog posts and send it automatically.
Hopefully you’ve found this post useful and are excited to get your Mailchimp email list started right away! As always we’re excited to help with Mailchimp, website design, photography and lots of other things. Don’t hesitate to contact us now.
